FBI Releases Document Confirming Roswell UFO 481
schwit1 writes "An investigator for the Air Force stated that three so-called flying saucers had been recovered in New Mexico. They were described as circular in shape with raised centers approximately 50 feet in diameter. Each one was occupied by three bodies of human shape, but only 3 feet tall dressed in metallic clothing of very fine texture."
Riiiiiight (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Questions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Webmistressrachel, what this document says is that an FBI agent interviewed someone who heard a rumor.
They did that a lot. They should be many, many documents just like this one, all mutually contradictory. It's to be expected.
Re:Questions. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:brought down by RADAR? (Score:2, Insightful)
(I am not a physicist or engineer)
Yes, we can tell.
my personal theory (Score:4, Insightful)
Area 51 is chock full of advanced but terrestrial technology. The government leaks this stuff seemingly confirming UFO's or half-assed and inadequate cover stories just to stir up conspiracy nuts. You tell someone you saw strange things in the sky over Groom Lake, people will smile and twirl their fingers in circles beside their heads.
I think the odds of alien life in this universe are very good; I think the odds for intelligent life are also good. But unless there's some lovely scifi physics waiting out there for us, space travel seems like it'll be awfully damned expensive and complicated. And little green men in flying saucers seems a little too -- how should I put it --- mundane? Too mundane for an interstellar alien intelligence.
When you consider that in light of the cheesy denials, it seems like it's not just paranoids getting worked up over nothing, it looks like the government is egging them on. Therefore my theory of using aliens to cover for the real secrets.
Re:Questions. (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was young I thought there might be something to stories like these, then I grew up and realized that many people are doped up, drunk, compulsive liars or completely bat-shit insane. And some are all of those, all the time.
Not proof, hearsay. (Score:4, Insightful)
You fail reading comprehension.
The document is produced by Guy Hottel and addressed to the director of the FBI.
In the document, Hottel writes that the information referred to in the document was provided to a special agent whose name is redacted. So we've already got a chain of four links here: the FBI Director, Guy Hottel at Strategic Air Command, the unnamed Special Agent, and the SA's source, whose name is also redacted after the preposition "by" in the first sentence.
Inside that, we have the contents of the report, which is that an Air Force investigator, also unnamed, stated that three bodies and three objects were recovered. The SA's source may have been the investigator, or an intermediary, the document isn't entirely clear on that. However, the long redacted portion of the first sentence after the word "by" would seem to indicate information beyond a mere name; perhaps a title, organization, or other contextual information. Such such information was redacted in the first paragraph, but the title "investigator" and the organization name "Air Force(s)" would seem to indicate that these two individuals are distinct. So that would give us five individuals: FBI Director, Guy Hottel, the Special Agent, his informant, and the Air Force investigator.
Everything in the document is essentially preceded by: The FBI acknowledges that SAC reports that a Special Agent says that an informant told him that an Air Force investigator stated... and it's all three years after the alleged events in New Mexico.
There's a word for this. It's "hearsay". In this case, it's four times removed from the only person who is actually named in the document: Guy Hottel at SAC. Putting hearsay in a document doesn't make the contents official; it's just acknowledgement on the part of FBI that people made statements-- in this case, some people made statements about what other people told them that other people told them that other people told them, with three of the individuals involved unnamed.
The important part of the document is the last paragraph-- what the Special Agent did as a result of the informant's statement: "no further investigation was attempted". In other words, it wasn't credible enough to even bother looking into.
The only question here is why Slashdot's editors, more than sixty years later, aren't as astute as that Special Agent.
Re:Last words... (Score:4, Insightful)
Um.... bill says "ack...............phhhhhhhhttt
Last noises heard from dying aliens: "Ack, ack, ack..."
On a slightly more serious note, no one here seems to be taking this even a little bit seriously ( and no, I'm not new here) It seems to me that this is the first acknowledgement by the government that the "Roswell Incident" was something real. That an actual alien craft was involved. No weather balloon, experimental Russian or American aircraft or anything else.